


all the birds of paradise

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M, post-12x23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 12:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The first time they kiss, it’s wet lips on muddy knuckles before Dean drops Cas’s hand and just sits there, waiting for him.





	all the birds of paradise

**Author's Note:**

> wowwee

The first time they kiss, it’s wet lips on muddy knuckles before Dean drops Cas’s hand and just sits there, waiting for him. 

But Cas doesn’t say anything. Not yet. And Dean’s knees are aching and bad and old and somehow the mud is harder on his knees than that concrete floor was. Back when Cas died the first time. 

It’s pretty fucking funny. It really is. Dean picks up his hand again and kind of drools on the knuckles because he’s trying to laugh and cry and do nothing all at the same time. Lights are flashing from the little house, but as long as he sits here and Cas is here they’re okay. 

Any moment now Dean is gonna just stop. Stop breathing. Stop thinking. He'll just lie down in the mud, right here.

Years ago - fucking years ago, when he dragged Sam back into that cabin and laid him on the bed. That worked. Dean went to hell and came back out, and Sam is still here and after all they’ve been through they’re both fucking fine. Death ain’t shit. Not for a Winchester.

Cas coughs, harsh and violent. 

His eyes are gleaming and golden. 

Dean holds onto his fingers, doesn’t notice how cold they are. How the light in the house has suddenly gone out. Cas is alive and smiling and his hands wrap around Dean’s. 

So Dean kisses his knuckles again, takes that for however long he gets it this time. 

“Scared the shit outta me for a second, there.”

“Come with me,” Cas says, and then drops his head and closes his eyes.

 

 

Cas wakes up in the future. 

Somehow his right arm is crushed under Dean, and his hand is being used as a pillow, and in his sleep Dean saw fit to drool all over his hand. His ring is a little slimy, and Dean mumbles and farts when he tries to extricate himself. 

The cat kneads the blanket on top of him, purring, and Cas will feed her. If he can just slip his arm out - and replace it with a pillow. That will do.

Picking up the cat, Cas treads softly out of the bedroom. In this old house the floors creak, but Castiel knows the pattern of feet on wood by now. 

In the dawn-pink kitchen, Cas feeds the cat. Prepares coffee. Looks in the fridge, sees there’s only two pieces of bacon left but enough eggs to make a bacon-studded omelette. The smell of frying pork wakes Dean up, and he comes thundering down the stairs still groggy. 

Cas makes Dean’s coffee black as night and sweeter than sin, adds nothing but milk to his own cup, and gets a mouth pressed to his neck as a reward. Dean kisses him again, on the lips, mumbling something about how Cas should have stayed in bed.

“She was hungry,” Cas says, as the cat leaps up on the counter. 

“I’m hungry,” Dean says, nuzzling, and Cas laughs, goes back to check on the eggs.

There will be time for sex later. Here, they have all the time they need. 

When breakfast is eaten and the sun is high, they meet their niece at the park. Like her mother the girl is deaf, but at this point is even Dean is fluently signing. She likes to ride the swings and Cas likes to push her. Sam and Eileen buy popsicles from a passing truck for everyone. Cas, like his niece, prefers the orange cream bars. 

The park is full of people on a bright Sunday like this. Cas recognizes most of them. The young couple with a puppy. Kelly and her son, who will be turning ten soon and Cas has to remember to get a birthday present for him. The immigrant family who rolls the matriarch out in her wheelchair every Sunday. The ever-present man with the kite.

Dean kisses Cas and it tastes like fudgesicles. 

The other Dean, the one stuck in the past, isn’t here and Cas wishes he was. He keeps meaning to show him this. 

But this is Dean. This is the Dean he’s known all his life. The one who, ten years ago, kneeled in mud over Castiel’s own prone form. 

Cas loves him so much. He’s so happy to be here. 

 

 

“He’s gone,” Sam says.

“No. No, he’s not.”

“I mean. Ugh. The Nephilim. Checked the whole house.” Sam squats down next to Dean. Lays a careful hand on Castiel’s shoulder. 

“He’s not dead,” Dean says again.

Sam sighs, heavy and mournful, and says _Dean_ in that certain type of way.

“I swear - no, feel his pulse. Feel this,” Dean says, handing Sam his wrist. A heart is beating somewhere. Dean doesn’t know if Cas even had a pulse before. But he was human, once. There’s still something left there. 

Sam feels the pulse. Hands the wrist back to Dean. “Okay. But is he -” 

“I don’t know. He won’t wake up. He said,” Dean starts, and pauses. “He told me to come with him.”

“How did his eyes look?”

“Yellow.” Dean swallows. “Like, Nephilim yellow.”

No one particularly wants to go back to the bunker. Not yet. Not while there’s a portal that may or may not open again and James Novak has a three month lease. They bury Kelly, replace the mattress, and now Cas lives in the bed. 

Sometimes Dean lives in the bed. Just in case Cas wakes up again. And sometimes, when Dean is with him, he has these dreams. Dreams where he and Cas have matching rings and an orange tabby and a bright-eyed niece, and a red kite flies over the park, and Dean is so happy he can’t even bear it, can’t believe that he could even taste a life like this. When he and Cas lie together at night, Cas touches him on the wrists. Asks him if he sees it, yet. 

Yeah, Dean sees it all right. 

Until he wakes up, and Cas is still sleeping, and Mary is gone and the Nephilim is in the wind and Dean is lost.

 _Come with me,_ Cas said. 

Dean doesn’t miss that he only has those dreams when he sleeps in Cas’s bed. When he twines their fingers together, in the dark beneath the covers. In the morning Sam can give him worried eyes and laptop screens, and Dean doesn’t know how to tell him how beautiful his daughter is. How they happy they could be, how happy they really are.

It's all right there, waiting for them.

**Author's Note:**

> hey. hey listen. cas will be back.


End file.
